Abstract
In Baptist life, Mary typically appears only at Christmas. Accordingly, there is minimal theological reflection on Mary as a resource for ecclesial self-understanding. This article argues for embracing Mary as a figure of the church. Rightly understood, a richer Scriptural reading of Mary can both enhance Baptist (and more broadly Protestant) ecclesiology as well as contribute to the unity of the church.
While Mary has received some attention in recent Protestant thought, for many contemporary Baptists she continues to suffer from a kind of benign neglect, the result of what David Yeago has called, “the exclusion of Mary from the Protestant consciousness.” 2 This exclusion has not gone entirely unnoticed by earlier generations of Baptists. In the nineteenth century, John Broadus, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, described the Protestant position on Mary as “a violent reaction from one extreme to the opposite extreme.” 3 While “the Romanists have come very near making her an object of worship,” Protestants, standing “back in horror from that terrible idolatry, [have] seemed to shrink sensitively away from ever saying a word or ever thinking for a moment about the mother of Jesus.” Pointedly, Broadus concludes, “But isn’t it a pity that we should go to the opposite extreme as regards the mother of our Lord?” 4 The question remains relevant for Baptists. Mary appears briefly at Christmas, but she typically receives little reflection—theological or otherwise—during the rest of the year. In this article, I argue that Baptists can embrace Mary as a figure of the church in a way that at once enhances Baptist self-understanding and contributes to Christian unity.
Remembering in a way that heals
Broadus identifies two responses to Mary that continue to form contemporary thinking in Baptist (and more generally Protestant) life and practice: the concern with idolatry on the one hand, and the relegation of Mary to the periphery of devotion and thought on the other. In my own childhood in the predominantly Protestant Southern United States, it was not uncommon to hear that Catholics were not fully Christian because they worshipped Mary. While Roman Catholics have recently appealed to Mary as a “patroness” of Christian unity, it is also true that responses to Mary continue to generate division. 5
Theologian James Buckley states that in attending to the wounds or divisions of the church, we need to preserve painful memories in a way that heals. Certainly, when it comes to Mary, one of the painful memories for both Protestants and Catholics is the Protestant reaction against the perceived excesses of Medieval Mariology, which some described as a war against idols. In Zurich, for example, church doors were locked while statues of Mary were taken down and broken up, and murals were chipped away and scraped off the walls. 6 While Catholics could describe the painful memory as dishonoring and desecrating Mary, for Protestants the painful memory is the fear that devotion and thought about Mary obscures the faithful worship of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Attending to these memories in a way that heals would include fully honoring Mary in a way that enhances communion with the Triune God.
Baptist theological concerns surrounding Mary, then, include but are not limited to the following: has Mary herself taken on a quasi-divine status, thus turning her into a kind of idol? Is Mary another Mediator alongside Christ? Do the faithful pray to Mary rather than Christ, thus giving Mary a status she ought not to have? These are not new questions, and various Catholic documents have responded to them, though not always in a way that allays Protestant fears. 7
Mary: Scriptural reading strategy
Baptists, like Catholics and other Christians, believe in the normativity of Scripture as the story and revelation of the Triune God whom Christians are called to worship. Scripture is necessarily a touchstone in any understanding or possible reconceiving of Mary in the life of the Baptist church. In what follows, I look particularly at the following Scriptural images that have been important in Marian theology and practice: Mary as a daughter of Zion, Mary as virgin mother, Mary as partaker of Pentecost and as second Eve, Mary as hearer of the Word, and Mary as Theotokos. 8 Often, the theological patterns applied to Mary rely upon a figural or typological reading of Scripture. This kind of methodology is not alien to Baptists. It is a kind of reading, as Baptist theologian James McClendon (1924–2000) observes, that has already been integral to Baptist self-understanding and engagement with Scripture. 9
Briefly stated, a figural reading of Scripture “transports the historical events of the past into the present and future.” 10 It also sees the future in the past and present as a way to interpret Scripture in terms of the divine economy. 11 A figural reading then sees a pattern revealing an underling coherence that illuminates the present. This method is within Scripture itself, for example, when Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says that “our ancestors” were “all baptized into Moses … [And] they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (10:2, 4). This method is also, as Ephraim Radner states, shared by both Protestants and Catholics in that both have “shared this sense that the outworking of the scriptural figures—prophecies, forms, images, events—of Christ contain, in some way, the truth of his teaching.” 12 Radner goes on to state that a scriptural figure is not simply a literary metaphor “that brings to the intellect some deeper meaning when attached to another image.” Rather, he claims that “a figure is a form that God actually makes historical experience fit … In God’s providence, [scriptural figures] shape history according to God’s plan.” 13 Perhaps the most provocative figural readings of Scripture in Baptist life come out of the African American Baptist tradition. In numerous spirituals and sermons, for example, African American slaves saw themselves as led by Moses through the baptismal waters from captivity to freedom. They interpreted their present in light of this Scriptural pattern that shed light on their past and future. 14
While figural reading has been incorporated in Baptist life and thought, it has not been applied to Mary (for the most part and as far as I know). Among the exceptions would be the African American spiritual, “Oh Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn. Oh Mary, don’t you weep, don’t you mourn. Pharaoh’s armies got drowned. Oh Mary, don’t you weep.” In this reading, Mary is placed alongside the children of Israel (and all who are in captivity) and could be implicitly understood as their (and our) Mother weeping for her children. 15 More typical Baptist readings of Mary, however, are monolithic or “literal.” That is, they give primary attention to those Scriptural passages that explicitly name Mary. Thus, since she is described most fully in the birth narratives (Luke and Matthew), this has also been the place where she has appeared in Baptist thought, i.e., at Christmas, as the virgin who gives birth to Jesus.
Using a figural reading strategy, however, provides a window or way for Baptists to engage other images of Mary and possibly more expansive theological understandings of her. In what follows, I will both address certain Protestant concerns about Mary (idolatry, Mary as mediator replacing Christ) and examine ways that Scripture might address or heal divisions surrounding Mary.
Daughter of Zion: Mary, Moses and the Burning Bush
The image of Mary as “Daughter of Zion” reminds us that Mary belonged to the Jewish people. This image therefore underscores what Jaroslav Pelikan describes as the “tragically forgotten bond between Mary and the Jewish tradition.” 16 Mary, like Jesus and like the church, cannot be understood apart from the people called Israel.
A particular scene that enhances this figural reading of Mary and addresses Protestant worries about Mary and idolatry is Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3). Both homilies and artistic depictions have placed Mary (sometimes holding Jesus) within the burning bush.
For my purposes, what is significant about the juxtaposition of these figures has to do with the Protestant worry over the idolizing Mary—a worry that a first glance might confirm that Mary, like the voice of God, is in the burning bush and thus appears to be deified. If we interpret Mary in light of Moses and Israel, however, as a daughter of Zion, then the overcoming of idolatry by both Moses and Mary appears more clearly. In responding to his unique calling from God, Moses leads his people away from idolatry. First, Moses leads his enslaved people away from the pagan idolatry of their Egyptian captors. Secondly, Moses leads his people away from their own idolatry before the golden calf. The burning bush on Mount Sinai prefigures the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, both of which are gifts from God for the salvation of Israel.
Placing Mary in the burning bush, and in this story of Moses and Israel, identifies Mary, too, as one who leads God’s people away from idolatry. How does she do this? She does not, like Moses, lead people through water to freedom. Nor does she, like Moses, give commandments—at least, she does not do this on a surface level. Reading this scene figurally, however, in light of the future and our present, one can say that Mary leads Israel through water to freedom by giving birth to Jesus. As God entrusted Moses with the commandments, so also does God entrust Mary with the Word, the Son of God. This Word is a gift given through Mary to make salvation possible. Mary herself (like Moses) does not save, since God is the One who saves. Nevertheless, Mary, like Moses, becomes the means through which God makes salvation possible for His people.
Understood in this light, Mary herself becomes a threat to all idolatry, since she both points to God and offers worship to the One to whom all worship is due. As daughter of Zion, Mary believes and embodies the conviction that “you shall have no other gods before me” (Exod 20:3). Thus, she readily interprets all that she receives from God in terms of Israel: “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever” (Luke 1:54–55). Moreover, Mary accepts Gabriel’s words that her Son “will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luke 1:33). From this perspective, Baptists could embrace Mary as “Daughter of Zion.”
Mary as human: Virgin and mother
A common Protestant worry is that while Mary perceived herself as a humble servant before the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, subsequent Christians (particularly Catholics) have not, but have rather elevated her above who or how she saw herself. The “Mary, Moses, burning bush” typology elevates Mary: Mary in the burning bush is visually higher than Moses is. In one icon, Moses is holding his arms up and his hands open towards both the burning bush and Mary, while Mary is looking up with raised hands. Like the bush, Mary is “blazing, yet … not consumed” (Exod 3:2). Amadeus of Lausanne (12th century), in his third homily “on the praises of the Blessed Mary,” vividly describes this scene in words to Mary, “You were on fire like the bush which once was shown to Moses and you were not burnt up … The fire revealed a shining dew.” 17 The implication could be that Mary is semi-divine, rather than human.
Theologian Eugene Rogers sheds light on understanding the full humanity of Mary even as she receives the fire of God’s Spirit, especially in his analysis of Rom 11:24 (“For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.”) Following Romanos the Melodist (6th century), Rogers interprets “para phusin” in terms of “God’s acting in excess of nature.”
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Rogers describes Paul as pointing to the paradigmatic location of God’s excess: the salvation of Gentiles. It is not natural for a wild branch to be grafted onto a domesticated olive tree, but God transfigures nature for the economy of salvation. Following Romanos, Rogers interprets the virgin birth in this light, that is, in the light of God’s excess. “The virgin birth, like the salvation of the Gentiles, is neither merely physical nor anti-physical: it is strictly paraphysical [in that] it accompanies and exceeds nature.” It is paraphysical because … it proceeds alongside, in solidarity with nature, and para, in excess of nature: a companion to nature, befriending, restoring, consummating, and exceeding it. The womb is where the Spirit conceives this excess, that God should become human, who has no need to do so, who has no need of flesh, but takes it as if to God’s detriment, except that God has made our cause God’s own, takes flesh for our sake, for excess of love.
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Interpreted in this light, the virgin birth accompanies and exceeds nature as the “bush unburned by fire.”
Placing Mary in the burning bush, then, where God speaks through a bush but the bush is not consumed, points also to how God’s Spirit “comes upon Mary” but Mary herself is not consumed. She remains human even as she displays God’s extravagant excess and abundance. God’s excess does not diminish or replace Mary’s humanity. Mary is or ought to be elevated not because she is super-human or quasi-divine, but because God’s extravagant abundance “rests” upon her in a way that transfigures rather than negates her humanity, enabling her to give birth as a virgin.
This understanding of Mary as One on whom the Spirit rests in unique and abundant ways relates to dialogue with Catholics about Mary’s perpetual virginity. This is no doubt a large topic that I will not attempt fully to address here. I will, however, respond to one point from the Catholic theologian Krzysztof Mielcarek where he gives the following theological description of perpetual virginity: The “ever-virginity of Mother of Jesus … excludes first of all any sensual and selfish desires or passions, any dissipation of the heart and mind. The bodily integrity or incorruption is but an outward sign of the internal purity.” 20 The linking of virginity to purity could suggest human sexuality (and marriage) as a lesser state or as a defiled state since Mary needs to remain a virgin to be pure. A question for exploration is: does Mary need, theologically, the extravagance of perpetual virginity? Is this even rightly described as extravagance? From my perspective, that Mary could have had further children neither negates the virgin birth of Jesus (certainly a theological necessity) nor makes Mary less pure. 21
Mary as partaker of Pentecost and as second Eve
The imagery of the Spirit as the One who overshadows or “rests” upon Mary, as God overshadowed Moses on Mount Sinai, relates to Mary as participant and partaker in the Pentecost feast. Mary is one who receives the seed of the Spirit in Luke 2, just as the gathered church receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in tongues of flame at Pentecost (Acts 2). Just as Mary receives the Word in her womb, so too is the early church given the gift of speaking in ways that they can understand and be understood. The Spirit thus seeks to bring unity among Christ’s followers, even as the Spirit tells Mary that her son will reign, and thus bring unity, over the house of David forever.
The same Spirit that overshadowed Mary, that hovered over her, so that she gave birth to Jesus, the Word, hovers over the church as well, making possible the birth of God’s Word in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit through Mary makes the birth of Jesus possible: a new reality heretofore unimaginable comes into being. Here, the figure of Mary as second Eve comes more fully into view. Whereas through the first Eve (along with Adam) comes death, Mary as the second Eve is instrumental in making new life possible. She does not replace Jesus Christ as the source of new life, nor does she replace him as the means to communion with the Father through the Spirit. Nevertheless, through Mary and her active receptivity of the Spirit, a new space opens up in creation for God to be born a creature (to contain the uncontainable).
Understanding Mary as one who is instrumental in making new life possible, as one who uniquely welcomes and receives the Holy Spirit, helps to make sense of claims relating Mary to the restoration of unity among all who believe in Christ. As mentioned earlier, Roman Catholic statements have described Mary as a figure for Christian unity. According to Pope John Paul II, “How anxious [Mary] is for the unity of all her Lord’s disciples? She knows the path leading to this unity.” 22 Some Protestants have objected to such claims since Mary seems more of a divisive figure. While this is true in some ways, the images of Mary as partaker in Pentecost and Mary as second Eve can make fuller sense of Mary as a bridge to unity. Mary could be said to “know the path” to unity because she herself received God’s Spirit so fully that “new creation” burst forth. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit unites, but to think about the Spirit in the drama of God’s salvation requires thinking materially (about creation and new creation) because, as Eugene Rogers puts it, “the Spirit has befriended matter.” More specifically, discussing the Annunciation, Rogers says about the Spirit who hovered over Mary, “Resting upon the corporeal body of the Son is not the end of the Spirit’s distribution of gifts, but she rests there that she might rest also on the body of the Son in the Church, and on the body of the Son in the baptized, and on the body of the Son in the bread and the wine, and on the body of the Son in whatever other place she conceives it.” 23 Mary can be said to be a figure of unity because the gift of the Spirit, which Mary receives fully and which are always extravagant, is for the whole body and ultimately for the world.
Mary as pilgrim
The reality is, of course, that the church remains divided. If Mary is one who “knows the way to unity,” it is also the case that this way is not clear, but hidden by both our sin and lack of knowledge. In this light, Mary as pilgrim is important. First, according to Pope John Paul, Mary prefigures the “pilgrimage aspect of the church.” In the 1987 encyclical Redemptoris Mater, the Pope states that Mary is “present in the midst of the pilgrim Church from generation to generation through faith and as the model of the hope which does not disappoint (cf. Rom 5:5).” 24 The image of Mary as fellow pilgrim and of the church as on pilgrimage, journeying together with the communion of saints, provides resources for imaging that we are not yet what or where God desires us to be. Through hope, a pilgrimage church sees that God desires to give yet more spiritual riches.
Mary as hearer of the Word
Baptists—with our emphasis on Bible reading, Bible study, and the preached Word—can relate well to the portrayal of Mary as hearer of the Word. Most centrally, Mary hears the words from Gabriel. Yet, in order to hear from Gabriel in faith, she has already heard and digested Scripture as a faithful Jewish girl. To hear, in this context, means to respond and obey. Mary actively receives God’s Word. Like the prophets who ate God’s word, thereby making the word part of their bodies, Mary even more fully bears God’s Word within her womb.
From this perspective, Mary epitomizes the prophet—one who receives God’s word and delivers it. Mary is a different kind of prophet, a unique prophet, because the words she receives and passes on are not only verbal (as in the Magnificat), but the Word made flesh whom she in turn will need to hear in order to be saved. Images of Mary that reverse the conventional Mary/child icon suggest this conviction. Christ holding infant Mary in his arms shows how even though Mary birthed Jesus, she too must become as a child—humble before the Risen Christ in order to receive Christ’s word.
Mary is one who ponders the word, who “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). While she does not fully understand the word (e.g., the Temple scene in Luke 8), at the same time, Mary has already obeyed and received God’s word in a radical and unique way, though she does not fully understand its implications. Yet if Jesus’ family is primarily “Christological” (“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it,” Luke 8:21), does this not diminish Mary’s role? Some Protestants, in light of Luke 8, might see Mary as a model hearer of the Word, but a model who like all of us nonetheless struggles with the words of Christ. Such a response presents us with a twin challenge: to portray Mary in such a way that human responses to God’s words are not erased from her own journey while not flattening Mary into just another disciple. Relating to Mary as only a model of faith (for example, apart from Mary as Theotokos, which I discuss below) lends itself too easily to a kind of “Protestant moralizing that reduces biblical texts to their outcomes in human conduct; that is, Mary becomes a tonic to render readers into better people.” 25
Mother of God
Theotokos or “God-bearer” is not language that would be heard in most Baptist churches. Often translated as “mother of God,” this title might sound to many Protestants as if Mary is being elevated far beyond her humble station as servant of God. Rightly understood, however, the title Theotokos safeguards against idolatry. Mary is not herself God but the one who bears the eternal Son of God. The title “has a basis in Scripture (‘the mother of my Lord,’ Luke 1:43) and safeguards the identity of Christ … Mary is the ‘God-bearer’ inasmuch as she is the human mother of the Son of God incarnate.” 26 To call Mary “Mother of God,” then, does not mean that she is divine but that her son is. While Baptists and other Protestants might not feel comfortable using Theotokos or Mother of God in worship, embracing the theological rationale of this title, affirmed at the Council of Ephesus (431), can only enhance the faithful worship of the Triune God.
Perhaps the image of Mary as Mother that would most resonate in Baptist, Protestant life would be Mater Dolorosa (sorrowful mother): Mary weeping at the foot of the cross for her son, like Rachel weeping for her children. As noted earlier, the spiritual, “O Mary, don’t you weep,” captures this depiction, as does Michelangelo’s Pieta, an image well-known in most Protestant circles. Rachel shedding tears over Israel prefigures Mary shedding tears over Christ’s body and proleptically points toward Mary in deep sorrow over the brokenness of Christ’s body the church. Such an image reminds us that “in every insult, rift, and war, where color, scorn, or wealth divide, [Christ] suffers still, yet loves the more, and lives, though ever crucified.” 27 This figure of Mary calls all Christians to attend to the wounds of Christ that still mark his body.
One way to bind the wounds of division in the Body of Christ is to attend more fully to Mary as a figure of the church. By pointing always to Christ, Mary embodies God’s desire for us to turn away from idolatry. She receives the Holy Spirit. She manifests God’s extravagant grace. She hears and delivers the Word. She magnifies the Lord (Luke 1:46) and in so doing magnifies the church as God’s new creation for the life of the world.